The Big Issue Australia #567 – Bob Dylan by The Big Issue Australia

B E N E DICT CU M B E R BATCH | KATE CE B E RANO | DAVI D LYNCH

No 567 27 Jul - 9 Aug 2018

HELPING PEOPLE HELP THEMSELVES $3.50 of the cover price goes to your vendor

BOB DYLAN

NATIONAL OFFICE Chief Executive Officer Steven Persson Chief Operating Officer Sally Hines Editor Amy Hetherington Chief Financial Officer Jon Whitehead National Marketing and Partnerships Manager Louise Gray National Operations Manager Jeremy Urquhart

The Big Issue is Australia’s leading social enterprise. We are an independent, not-for-profit organisation that develops solutions to help homeless, disadvantaged and marginalised people positively change their lives. The Big Issue magazine is published fortnightly and sold on the streets by vendors who purchase copies for $3.50 and sell them for $7, keeping the difference. Subscriptions are also available and provide employment for disadvantaged women as dispatch assistants. For details on all our enterprises visit thebigissue.org.au. Principal Partners

CONTACT US Tel (03) 9663 4533 Fax (03) 9639 4076 GPO Box 4911 Melbourne VIC 3001 hello@bigissue.org.au thebigissue.org.au WANT TO BECOME A VENDOR? If you’d like to become a vendor contact the vendor support team in your state. ACT – (02) 6234 6814 Supported by Woden Community Service NSW – (02) 8332 7200 Chris Campbell NSW + ACT Operations Manager Qld – (07) 3221 3513 Susie Longman Qld Operations Manager SA – (08) 8359 3450 Matthew Stedman SA + NT Operations Manager Vic – (03) 9602 7600 Gemma Pidutti Vic + Tas Operations Manager WA – (08) 9225 7792 Andrew Joske WA Operations Manager

Major Partners Allens Linklaters, Corrs Chambers Westgarth, Clayton Utz, Fluor Australia, Herbert Smith Freehills, Macquarie Group, MinterEllison, Mutual Trust Pty Ltd, NAB, PwC, Qantas, Realestate.com.au, Salesforce, The Ian Potter Foundation, William Buck Marketing/Media Partners Adstream, C2, Carat & Aegis Media, Chocolate Studios, Getty Images, Realview Digital, Res Publica, Roy Morgan Research, Town Square Distribution and Community Partners The Big Issue is grateful for all assistance received from our distribution and community partners. A full list of these partners can be found at thebigissue.org.au.

The Big Issue is a proud member of the INSP, which incorporates 122 street publications like The Big Issue in 41 countries.

CONTENTS

567

COVER STORIES 14 JOKERMAN

Why should we still care about Bob Dylan? There’s many ways to answer that question.

19 HIT BY A HURRICANE

Kate Ceberano wasn’t a fan of Bob Dylan…but things have changed.

FEATURES 20 CARE FACTOR

The conversation-stopping, life-changing power of being a carer.

22 IN THE VALLEY

THE BIG PICTURE A photographer documents traditional ways of life in Ethiopia, just as that life comes under great threat.

27 SEARCHING FOR HOME

LIVING HOMELESS Trying to escape violence and anxiety, one man finds so much more.

28 CUMBERBATCH JUMPS RIGHT IN Benedict Cumberbatch on getting down and dirty in his new series.

30 LYNCH BY LYNCH

Surprise, surprise: the biography of David Lynch is out of the ordinary.

32 IF IT AIN’T BROKE

The charming, childish allure of the female duo behind The Breaker Upperers.

35 GUITAR KING

Bow down to the power of Kaki King.

REGULARS 04 ED’S LETTER, YOUR SAY 05 MEET YOUR VENDOR 07 STREETSHEET 08 HEARSAY 11 MY WORD 12 RICKY 13 FIONA

36 FILM 37 SMALL SCREENS 38 MUSIC 39 BOOKS 40 TASTES LIKE HOME 43 PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT 44 PUZZLES 46 CLICK

A SURI TRIBESMAN, WITH HIS AK47 RIFLE (P22). PHOTO BY NEIL THOMAS

ED’S LETTER

YOUR SAY

AT THE HEART

LIFE’S A BEACH

THE TIMES THEY are a-changin’ here

at The Big Issue (with apologies to our cover star Bob Dylan). For more than 22 years, Kirstie Papanikolaou has dished out assistance, advice and award-winning meatballs to vendors from our Melbourne office. She has been part of the TBI family since the very beginning, since the simple idea that a magazine could change lives first became a reality, launching on the steps of Flinders Street Station with 20 vendors. Now, after 567 editions, Kirstie is bidding us farewell. It’s a chance to reflect on just how far we’ve come since that winter’s morning in 1996. The Big Issue continues to change lives all around the country; 7000 vendors have sold almost 12 million magazines in that time, collectively earning themselves $27 million. Undoubtedly, selling The Big Issue is a tough gig. Behind the scenes there are people working hard to make life better for our vendors and the women who pack our mag for subscribers. A small team of support staff and volunteers around the country keep the heart of The Big Issue beating. They make sure our vendors have everything they need when they head out to sell each and every edition. They stand by them through personal lows and celebrate their triumphs. They offer friendship, kindness and humour. They dress up as plum puddings, sumo wrestlers and Christmas turkeys (okay, so that’s just Kirstie). And, perhaps most importantly, they give our vendors the opportunity they need to earn an income and make a difference in their own lives. And, in turn, our vendors make a lasting impression in theirs. As Kirstie explained in Ed#521, “I have had the pleasure of meeting some of the funniest, smartest kindest people on earth… All of them have taught me that life is precious, and that poverty and homelessness do not discriminate.”

Amy Hetherington, Editor

persevering and doing so much with your life despite the barriers placed in I often buy The Big Issue from your way. You have every reason to our local vendor in Narrabeen. LETTER be proud of how far you’ve come! Around a year ago you featured OF THE FORTNIGHT Elizabeth Harington, Milton, an article about the Australian Qld film Blue, which addresses and promotes the many adversities A brief note of congratulations on facing our oceans locally and The Big Issue. I must confess to you globally. Flicking through that issue and that I once bought the magazine out reading that article I had no idea how of sympathy for the seller rather than significant it would be as a turning point the quality of the pieces therein. But in my life. I instantly purchased tickets now I buy for sympathy AND quality. to the film for my wife and myself. Up I particularly enjoyed the articles in until that day I had struggled with finding the most recent edition [Ed#566]. purpose and direction in my life and had Well done to all! always felt lost for lack of a better word. John Martin, Warracknabeal, Vic A year on I now run a popular Instagram account, which gives me a platform to advocate for our oceans @collettell and educate hundreds on the unique Thanks to the @thebigissue seller ecosystems existing off our shores. I am who pressed the pedestrian walk also heavily involved with marine debris button “because my hands were initiatives. More importantly, I have full” (of crutches). We had a brief found direction in my life and have been chat, he’s making decent sales able to help others find theirs. today. #adelaide Without the catalyst article in your magazine it is unlikely I would have travelled the path I have, so thank you! Keep up the great work! @crab_fishing_1 Phill Nicotra, Frenchs Forest, NSW Dr Gregory P Smith’s story As winner of this edition’s Letter of the Fortnight, Phill wins a copy of the new David Lynch biography, Room to Dream. See our interview p30.

Ayub’s personal story of homelessness, ‘Handle with Care’ in Ed#562, was moving and revealing. It should be made compulsory reading for anyone who makes the claim I sometimes hear that homeless people choose that lifestyle, as alternatives are available. I shall certainly be sharing it with people I know who are inclined to think that way. Congratulations Ayub on

[Ed#566] really touched me . I cannot wait to go to the writers festival and hear his talk.

COVER #567 BOB DYLAN PHOTO BY JAN PERSSON

THE BIG ISSUE USES MACQUARIE DICTIONARY AS OUR REFERENCE. MACQUARIEDICTIONARY.COM.AU

» ‘Your Say’ submissions must be 100 words or less, contain the writer’s full name and home address, and may be edited for clarity or space.

MEET YOUR VENDOR DAVID S SELLS THE BIG ISSUE IN PARRAMATTA, RHODES AND BURWOOD, SYDNEY. I STARTED SELLING The Big Issue in 1996, from Ed#3. I’d seen it advertised in a hostel in Melbourne. I went and signed up for it and sold that day. Almost 22 years later I’ve sold all over Australia; in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. There were many times I needed a change of scenery, so I’d go to another state and sell for a few months, or a couple of years, till I got sick of it. Wherever I go the customers have been good. It’s amazing how customers draw you into their lives. One lady wanted to find accommodation for her nephew. She came up and asked me; told me the story and I told her that I would find out for her. One of my other customers I knew was associated with the homeless accommodation at Parramatta, so I got them connected. We can always help someone else out, we’re not just there to sell magazines, or give directions. Mental illness led me to homelessness. When I was with a partner of mine I found out I was mentally ill and she couldn’t handle it. She took off and I came out of the hospital one day and no-one was there. I slept outside 95 per cent of the time when I was homeless, but I’ve got a place now. I’ve been there for six years – that’s a record for me. It was hard moving in at first. I thought, why am I paying rent? I don’t want to pay rent. I wanted to leave because I’d been out for so long, I was used to camping out. I was sleeping on the floor for the first few months, I felt more comfortable on the floor… Now I sleep on the lounge. I do sleep on the bed sometimes. It took about 12 months to get over the itchy feet. I’ve still got my rucksack as a reminder of where I’ve come from, where I once was. Even my old swag, I’ve still got that. It’s on top of the cupboard now though so I can’t see it, it’s not like I can just grab it and go. I’ve got too much stuff now, it will probably take me three truck-loads to move out of there. In my last vendor profile I said I was saving up for a fridge and someone bought it for me. I’ve still got it – that’s probably part of the reason I’m still there, you can’t carry that around with ya. When I first moved in I had to buy a broom and a mop. I went shopping one day and I hadn’t been shopping for 10 years, I hadn’t been in the supermarket. Some of the stuff I didn’t know. What happened to the old cleaner we used to buy? There used to be one and now there are about 10,000 different brands. I’m doing City2Surf with The Big Issue again this year, it’s the sixth year in a row. I’ve got regular people that donate every year. I think it’s both them supporting me and supporting The Big Issue. They know what I go through every day, so that’s why they keep giving. I’d like to say g’day to everyone at Rhodes, Parramatta, Burwood and Mascot. A special shout out to Hank and Mary, two very special customers. The most rewarding thing about selling the magazine is the accomplishment that I got up in the morning and actually done something.

“IT’S AMAZING HOW CUSTOMERS DRAW YOU INTO THEIR LIVES.” – DAVID S

interview by Sam Clark photo by Peter Holcroft

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STREETSHEET Stories, poems and pictures by Big Issue vendors and friends

Congratulations to vendors and Big Issue Classroom guest speakers Deborah and Ray on the birth of gorgeous Faye Joyce-Maree, born 10 February. Deb and Ray dropped by the Melbourne support office to show off this little cutie! Deb and Ray love being parents and all the trials and tribulations that go along with it!

BOUQUET TO THE BIG ISSUE

Izzy, who runs The Green Fig cafe in Figtree Lane in Busselton, loves The Big Issue, and buys one once a fortnight. She heralds from the south of England, and did a photography project about The Big Issue. She and her mother used to provide clothing and chocolates to TBI vendors in the UK. She said she would like to have me sit outside her cafe and sell copies of the magazine. One of her interests is writing poetry, and her boyfriend, who works in Coles, is an aspiring novelist, who has had some success with his writing. I come into her cafe to enjoy a good cup of coffee while doing a bit of my own poetry writing. I’m working on my next poetry chapbook submission to Ginninderra Press. It won’t be long before sales of my chapbook reach 100 copies. One thing I haven’t been enjoying that much of late is the wild and woolly weather that we have been experiencing, but it has provided a good supply of welcome rainfall. Cold weather is not one of my favourite things. Well it is winter, I suppose. Kathy sells The Big Issue in Busselton, WA.

Deb and Ray are Big Issue Classroom speakers and sell The Big Issue in Melbourne.

selling The Big Issue. My father Filip also really likes me getting out of the house and out into the atmosphere thanks to joining The Big Issue. John sells The Big Issue at Target, Bourke St, Melbourne.

BEST JOB EVER

I love participating in the City2Surf and being cheered on from the sidelines. It was a great feeling of achievement actually finishing the race. I am looking forward to doing it again this year. Bradley sells The Big Issue in Sydney.

I used to do work experience at Big W, Woolies, Mission Australia, Salvos and St Vinnies. But The Big Issue is the best job I’ve ever had. I enjoy meeting new people and being able to earn money. I’m happy to work anywhere in town. I really enjoy the flexibility. I even met some famous people, like Jane Doyle from Channel 7. I like when people tell me I’m doing a good job. Some customers even shout me a cup of coffee! Adrian sells The Big Issue at Hungry Jack’s and Bupa, Adelaide CBD.

WONDERFULLY WELL

RUN MY OWN RACE

CROWD SURF

I just want to say that this job is going really wonderful. I enjoy

One year when I competed in the City2Surf I got lost and instead of

finishing in Bondi Beach I ended up at Martin Place. I then asked this man for $2 and he gave me $50! Craig J sells The Big Issue on Norton St, Leichhardt, Sydney.

RONNIE’S FUNNIES

Q: What happens to Woolworths when it burns down? A: It turns to Coles! Ronnie S sells The Big Issue at CBA cnr Eagle and Creek Sts, Brisbane.

S.O.S.

Is she in caprice? Leaves me in fear of God As I knew the gypsy eyes She nurtured like nature I see him as son and daughter do Day over red rover S.O.S. Conrad M sells The Big Issue in Melbourne.

» All vendor contributors to Streetsheet are paid for their work.

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HEARSAY WRITER RICHARD CASTLES

» CARTOONIST ANDREW WELDON

I NAMED THE CHARACTER [APU] AFTER THE APU TRILOGY BY SATYAJIT RAY… I THOUGHT THAT THE NAME WAS A SIGNAL THAT WE HAD, AT LEAST, A SCHOLARLY INTENTION… AS MANY PEOPLE HAVE POINTED OUT, IT’S ALL STEREOTYPES ON OUR SHOW. THAT’S THE NATURE OF CARTOONING. The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, in response to the accusation that his show racistly depicts Indian convenience store owner Apu. – New York Times (US)

EAR2GROUND “It was all just middlelights.” A young girl when asked what were the highlights and lowlights of her first day back at school. Overheard by Sophie, of Brighton, SA.

“My generation drew an enormous amount of strength from battling against Reagan and Thatcher. They were the perfect white parents for us to rail against, and helped develop a sense of ourselves as a generation. And Trump is white, straight, a combination of Margaret Thatcher’s hair and Ronald Reagan’s body – he’s the perfect guy to rail against.” Author Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club; Survivor) on Donald Trump. – The Guardian (UK) “You [Australia] are the San Andreas fault between China and the West. These are the two great systems that have built up over 2000 years. You are the representative of Athens and the democratic Western tradition, and China is a Confucian totalitarian system.” Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for Donald Trump, on Australia being on shaky ground. – The Sydney Morning Herald “I think some people might know this, but not a lot of people do, is

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that in the initial ending Harry and Sally didn’t get together and I only changed it because I met my nowwife… We will be married 30 years next year. I met her during the making of the movie and I changed the ending because of that.” Rob Reiner, director of When Harry Met Sally, on changing the ending of the classic rom-com. The movie, like Reiner’s marriage, will be 30 next year. – Vulture (US) “We need to drink the red liquid from the cursed dark sarcophagus in the form of some sort of carbonated energy drink so we can assume its powers and finally die.” A statement from a petition signed by thousands who want to drink the liquid from a 2000-year-old sarcophagus discovered in Alexandria. The liquid most likely seeped in from a nearby sewage trench and drenched the three skeletons also found in the box. Bottoms up! – The Independent (UK) “For this person, this type of memory could have resulted from someone saying something like

PHOTO BY GETTY

“President Trump, I just saw your press conference with President Putin, and it was embarrassing. You stood there like a little wet noodle, like a little fan boy. I was asking myself, when are you going to ask him for an autograph or a selfie?” Arnold Schwarzenegger on his displeasure with Donald Trump’s press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin. – Twitter

‘mother had a large green pram’. The person then imagines what it would have looked like. Over time these fragments become a memory and often the person will start to add things in such as a string of toys along the top.” Martin Conway, director of the Centre for Memory and Law at the University of London, on new research that suggests people can’t recall memories from before they were about three-and-a-half years old – and any they think they have are likely to be fictional. – Vice (US, Canada) “I was the public face of it all and it was really tough for 11 months. I just had to go because I didn’t have any time to stand back and grieve myself for John... It was all coming from absolutely the right place, people were just wonderful

and they were mourning the loss of John, they were mourning the loss of Clarke and Dawe, and they were concerned about my wellbeing and how I was. It was very overwhelming, and I just got to the point where I thought well, I’ve just got to go somewhere and give myself a break.” Half of comedy duo Clarke and Dawe, Brian Dawe, on retreating to Tangier for a while to personally grieve for his friend John Clarke, who died in 2017. Dawe followed in the footsteps of many others to work on his own art in the Moroccan port city. – The Canberra Times “The significance of this bread is that it shows investment of extra effort into making food that has mixed ingredients. So, making some sort of a recipe, and that

implies that bread played a special role for special occasions.” Professor Dorian Fuller of University College London on finding 14,000-yearold bread in Jordan, pushing back the first evidence of bread-making by more than 5000 years. – BBC (UK) “Retribution ties you back to the person you’re trying to get payback from, instead of turning on your heel and walking away. Revenge keeps you focused on the mistreatment and doesn’t allow you to move forward and redirect your life.” Science writer Peg Streep (Mean Mothers: Overcoming the Legacy of Hurt) on revenge not necessarily being the healthiest response to a perceived wrong. – The New York Times (US)

» Frequently overhear tantalising tidbits? Don’t waste them on your friends – share them with the world at submissions@bigissue.org.au

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MY WORD

DEEP BLUE-GREEN-BROWN

PHOTOS BY iSTOCK

THERE’S SMOKE ON THE WATER, FIRE IN THE SKY AS TONY KELLY TAKES THE PLUNGE. I AWAKE WITH a strong desire to submerse myself in water and swim. I’ve had a big week. New job, new responsibilities, complex staffing issues to navigate and a trip to Canberra to beg for more money. I’ve been doing my laps at the pool, up and down, but today I want to swim unimpeded, stretch out and lose myself. It starts well. A small group of us leave the beach at Williamstown and, turning right at the end of the groyne, swim north. It doesn’t take long before we’re gliding over the top of the sea grass beds that line this part of the bay. My fingers graze over the top as I pull my arms through the water. I swim through schools of tiny little fish and occasionally I see larger ones, big enough to eat, dart in and out of the waving weed. A broad grin spreads across my face. I can feel myself slipping away. We stop for a brief rest and to do a head count. A single-engine WWII plane flies overhead, then a pelican with its wings wide glides past. No-one says a word. No-one needs to. I scan the bay horizon. There are three small fishing boats in close. In the middle distance there are some yachts, sails unfurled, taking their chances before the predicted front moves across from the west and further out there

are two large tankers slowly streaming out of the bay. Wistfully I think of the wonders the crew will encounter on their journey to who knows where. The vast expanse of nothingness; storms and large waves sweeping across the bow; phosphorescence illuminating the inky waters; jumping fish, dolphins and whales; new dawns revealing forestcovered mountains and sweeping bays. I rein myself back in and, taking my bearings from the flames spouting from the oil refinery stack, continue. At Jawbone Reserve we take another break, lolling on the reef. After some debate we plot our course directly towards the yellow marker about 400m offshore. Beyond, a green-brown haze lies low along the horizon, signalling the coming change. We strive forth. Within minutes the wind rises and the sea becomes choppy and it starts to rain. I’m not worried. I love the constant changes inherent in ocean swimming. Currents, wind, swell, temperature, visibility. Nothing ever the same. The emerald waters suddenly turn milky white and instantly I get a strange taste in my mouth. I think of gunpowder and sulphur. I stop and look around. The murkiness surrounds me. I look for my fellow swimmers who are spread out by now, thinking they will all have stopped. But everyone else seems to be continuing on. Reluctantly I put my head down and, trying to avoid

any water seeping into my mouth, keep swimming. The others beat me to the marker. What’s with the water? I ask when I arrive. Poo, says one, most likely from the Werribee sewage farm. A spill from the refinery, says another. The wind picks up. One of the white caps breaks across my face and the putrid water goes up my nose. I shiver with disgust. I imagine looking at the bay from an aerial view and watching an everexpanding petro-faecal plume moving across from the northwest slowly engulfing the tiny swimmers below. It’s only going to get worse and there’s only one thing to do and that is to swim the 1.25km back to the beach. Without saying a word all of us pull down our goggles and begin our grim swim back. Later, after a longer shower than usual, and with a steaming coffee in hand, I sit on the surf club steps with my friend Fiona. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other and we slide into easy conversation. I tell her of my ordeal expecting outrage and sympathy, especially as she used to work for the EPA, but she just laughs. I can’t help but laugh, too, as the satisfying glow of prolonged exercise seeps into my muscles. My mind loosens and the whole world exists in this moment.

» Tony Kelly is a Melbourne-based writer, lawyer and keen open-water swimmer.

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RICKY THE FRONT PAGE was dedicated to classified ads. “WANTED, a first-class carpenter; also a milkman, used to breaking in young heifers.” “OATS OATS OATS. The undersigned is a buyer at the highest market rates.” “IMMIGRATION. Three Norfolk immigrants, good ploughmen, are remaining for hire.” It was Thursday, 28 August, 1862, and the Launceston Examiner knew the business model: milk the cash cow of classifieds as a priority, then break the hard news on page five. “THE MIDNIGHT MOVEMENT. The novel method of reclaiming the fallen females in London and other cities, by holding midnight meetings, has resulted in the reformation of upwards of one thousand of this unhappy class.” And: “SHOCKING TRAGEDY AT LONGFORD – MURDER AND SUICIDE. Intelligence was received in town last night that Mr James Fullerton, of Parkmount, near Longford, had murdered his housekeeper during the afternoon by stabbing her in the throat. After committing this dreadful act he put an end to his own life in a similar manner.” Also: “ORANGES. This delicious fruit is rather scarce this season, in consequence of the great devastation in the orangeries in New South Wales by an insect, which, in some cases, has destroyed in one orchard as many as a thousand trees.” A thousand orange trees lost, a thousand females saved, and murder most foul in languid Longford. What had set Fullerton off like a mad heifer? August would have been grim on the farms, with rain pooling in the fields and freezing wind whipping over the mountains in the west. I don’t remember much of my five minutes in Longford three years ago, but I found in my desk drawer the other day a compilation of newspaper clippings titled “Longford History”. It comes from the Norfolk Plains Gazette: Summer 1994. It remains my one connection to the town. You literally pick up stuff when you travel, sometimes because it’s easier than remembering the detail. Been there, done that, bought the souvenir gruesome murder recap.

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“A thousand orange trees lost, a thousand females saved, and murder most foul in languid Longford.”

The clippings covering the tragedy are confusing. They report the crime not as a murder-suicide like the Launceston Examiner, but as a triple murder. Fullerton and the servant, Isabella Webster, were found “…barbarously murdered, having been shot and their throats cut. Two days later the body of John Sullivan was also found in a waterhole…also barbarously murdered, having been shot in the head and neck.” A constable named Dazeley was stationed overnight at Parkmount, Fullerton’s home, after the bodies were discovered. The poor guy was terrified and his dread was justified: he hears footsteps outside and hides under the couch. The murderer had returned to ransack the house for money. Dazeley lived the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, “in terror lest he should be murdered himself”. He was teased and tormented by some of the townsfolk until he fled the area for good, almost certainly suffering PTSD. The gazette’s final word on the matter is this. “Despite all the efforts of the police and the substantial reward offered, the culprit responsible for the crimes was never apprehended.” What actually happened was much more dramatic, and is carefully detailed in Robert Cox’s 2014 book, A Compulsion to Kill. It places Longford in the centre of Tasmania’s barbarous past, and would make a terrific podcast. Two men are arrested, a shady stranger is suspected, a prostitute dobs in her husband, and the town with its violent mystery becomes the focus of the colony. The legend of the Parkmount murders. But for me Longford exists only in a hazy memory of a wide, silent street and a sandstone church, and in a takeaway shop a magazine rack holding a neat pile of photocopied clippings, putting a civilised price-tag on a barbaric crime: Please take one, suggested donation $2.

» Ricky French (@frenchricky) is a writer, musician and traveller.

PHOTOS BY JAMES BRAUND

Classified Information

FIONA

The Sound of Muzak THERE’S NO WIN in complaining about

the mores of contemporary music. You’ve automatically hit the button marked “Get off my lawn”. An alarm goes off, and everyone presumes you think it’s all been downhill since Hotel California, now that was an album, and what about The Beatles? John was a genius! IT’S ALL JUST NOISE THESE DAYS. Time for a lie down, Grandma. But, look, come on. It can’t just be me. Who held the meeting where it was decided that “anonymous background funk” was to be compulsory? Every shop, every bar, every cafe; the same upbeat, rather loud, bland contemporary/retro fusion funk that just sits there throbbing like a low-level headache that won’t quite step up and claim your attention. When my local bar sounds the same as my optometrist, which is an actual thing, I think that’s a problem. “We’re vibey, but not in an overt way. Contemporary, but not recognisable. Cool, huh?” the music’s saying. “Don’t engage! I don’t want anything from you. I’m just filling the aching void of existential horror that would open up like a hellmouth if there were silence, or if you recognised a song and had to have an emotional response! Don’t worry, you’re safe in this cocoon of aural fuck nothing.” Music to swipe by, I call it. Yes, yes, I hate it. As a DJ, it’s dispiriting work. I prefer bringing dancing and fun. I know. WEIRD. I had one excruciating gig a decade ago, filling in at an “it” bar in the city, where I spent five hours trying unsuccessfully, like a poorly trained nurse stabbing a hypodermic randomly nowhere near a vein, to find a seam of music they wanted to listen to. But they didn’t want music to listen to, they wanted music to not listen to. HOW IS THAT A THING? The bar manager was kind, and sort of apologetic. “The staff are loving it,” he said, as I

“Who held the meeting where it was decided that ‘anonymous background funk’ was to be compulsory?”

dropped ‘Blue Monday’ by New Order, “but the kids just want upbeat ambient stuff. They’re trained to expect it.” “The kids” left in droves, and by the end of the shift, which thanks to time dilation was one of the worst months of my life, the manager reflexively said, “Thanks, I’ll be in touch”, and there was a second’s pause before we both burst into hysterical laughter. I play at a pub where this is the vibe they want, and I’m having a crack. My observation is it’s the homeopathy of music. Music itself is too strong for the clientele to deal with, but if you dilute music until there’s say, a single drop in a bucket of tap water so that there’s nothing in it to possibly react to, you’re hailed as some kind of genius. The pub is filled with people happily not listening as I play tracks no-one knows or cares about from 1970s funk or disco records – tracks that used to be known as “did not become a hit” or, let’s call a spade a spade, “unsuccessful”. There is zero skill to this, and Spotify would be fine, but what the clientele actually respond to is having a live DJ playing vinyl. So DJs end up “performing” being a DJ, while entering a state of boredom approaching Zen. One DJ mate of mine has quit because the work is so dull. Another sighs and gets on with it. Years ago, I shared a flat with John Safran and, while I think fondly of him, it’s tricky living with an iconoclast. He was a stirrer. When I first began DJing, he would taunt me that all I was doing was “hitting play”. He would then mime pressing a button, and say, “Oooh look, I’m a DJ.” As he intended, it drove me bananas. But 20 years on, what can I say? He’s been proven right. GET OFF MY LAWN.

» Fiona Scott-Norman (@FScottNorman) is a writer, comedian and long-suffering DJ who is saving your ears one dancefloor at a time.

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WE ALL KNOW HIS SONGS. MANY OF US HAVE SEEN HIM PL AY. SO, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, WHY SHOULD PEOPLE STILL CARE ABOUT BOB DYL AN? MICHAEL EPIS DELVES INTO THE MYSTERIOUS AND HIL ARIOUS HISTORY OF THE STAR TO FIND OUT JUST THAT.

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PHOTO BY GETTY

BOB DYLAN IS a funny guy. As in comic

funny. Few people know he pitched a sitcom to HBO, with Larry Charles, who wrote for Seinfeld in its first five seasons. Not any old sitcom; he pitched a slapstick sitcom. Charles says that Dylan got “deeply into Jerry Lewis” (yes, the goofy comedian), watching his movies on repeat in his tour bus in the 90s. Out of the blue Dylan called Charles with an idea. “I meet [Dylan] in the back of this boxing gym in a cubicle, he’s chainsmoking the whole time…completely smoke-filled…and his assistant comes over and says ‘do you want something to drink?’ and it’s attached to this coffee house so I say ‘yeah, I’ll just have an iced coffee’ and Bob responds ‘I want something hot. I want a hot beverage’, because that’s sort of how he talks,” Charles tells You Made It Weird, a podcast. The drinks arrive – and Dylan promptly drinks Charles’ ice coffee. That’s slapstick right there. “He wanted to star in it, almost like a Buster Keaton or something,” Charles continues. “He brings out this very ornate beautiful box, like a sorcerer would, and he opens the box and dumps all these pieces of scrap paper on the table…and yes, that is exactly what he does…every piece of scrap paper was hotel stationery, little scraps from Norway and from Belgium and Brazil and places like that, and each little piece of paper had a line, like some kind of little line scribbled or a name scribbled, ‘Uncle Sweetheart’, or a weird poetic line or an idea or whatever, and he was like ‘I don’t know what to do with all this.’” These were the notes for the sitcom. So off they went to HBO – Charles in his pyjamas (that’s what he wore for several years) with a beard down to his belly, Dylan decked out in black leather dressed like a cowboy, hat and all. HBO said yes. Dylan changed his mind the moment they left the room. “It’s too slapsticky.” Remarkably, they continued working together, and made a film, Masked and Anonymous (2003) – where Dylan plays a legendary musician serving time

in prison, who is released to perform at a charity concert. Not even a cast boasting John Goodman, Penélope Cruz, Jeff Bridges, Jessica Lange, Christian Slater, Mickey Rourke and Val Kilmer could save it. Not long after that Dylan appeared in a TV ad – for Victoria’s Secret lingerie. No, he wasn’t modelling their goods, but there was a joke behind that too. Four decades earlier he had been asked at a press conference, “If you were going to sell out to a commercial interest, which one would you choose?” He answered, “Ladies garments.” Dylan fans have long memories. A few years later came his Christmas album, Christmas in the Heart. Check the video on YouTube of a bewigged Bob singing ‘Must Be Santa’ and tell me it’s not funny. Earlier this year he released a version of ‘He’s Funny That Way’, a 1920s film tune sung by the likes of Billie Holiday. Croaky old Bob intones these lyrics: “I’m not much to look at/Nothing to see/Just glad I’m living/And lucky to be/I’ve got a man crazy for me/He’s funny that way.” It’s funny – which is a bonus on an anthology promoting marriage equality. Dylan has been a public figure for well over half a century now – for goodness sake, Dwight Eisenhower was US president when he first stepped on stage – yet still manages to confound, surprise and intrigue. Only a master illusionist can do that. Take his acceptance speech for the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, which came after months of resounding silence, filled only by commentators speculating on that silence. With just days to go for the acceptance deadline, Dylan delivered a recorded message in which he spoke at length – a good 27 minutes – backed by the tinkling of lounge piano. After a short preamble on Buddy Holly and Lead Belly, he discoursed on three books formative for him: Homer’s Odyssey, Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front. The interwebs went to work quick smart. What the collective mind THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

If he did, no-one has uncovered it. But Empire Burlesque (1985) does use loads of lines from films, mainly film noir, and mainly Humphrey Bogart lines. He told Joni Mitchell – “I don’t write songs anymore, I just take notes from TV.” No-one believed him at the time. That’s what Larry Charles divined when Dylan unfurled those scraps of paper. “I realised, that’s how he writes songs. He takes these scraps and he puts them together and makes his poetry out of that. He has all of these ideas and then just in a subconscious or unconscious way, he lets them synthesise into a coherent thing.” Dylan himself said a similar thing in another long speech (30 minutes!) when accepting the Person of the Year award from MusiCares in 2015. “These songs didn’t come out of thin air. I didn’t just make them up out of whole cloth… It all came out of traditional music: traditional folk music, traditional rock’n’roll and traditional big-band swing orchestra music.” Swing? Well, Dylan’s three most recent albums (one was three CDs) are all

PHOTOS BY GETTY

found was that of the 78 sentences he devoted to Moby-Dick, about a quarter bore a resemblance – some strong, some weak – to sentences from the online SparkNotes guide to the book. Yep, the guide that lazy high-school students turn to when they need to crib a book they haven’t read. The winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature writes his acceptance speech from a student’s guide? Really? Another Dylan riddle, maybe to taunt those who thought he should never have been awarded the honour. And it’s not as if Dylan wouldn’t know his words would be examined. When a few snatched phrases from a terribly obscure Japanese memoir Confessions of a Yakuza turned up in songs on his album ‘Love & Theft’ (2001), the world soon knew all about it. Bob Dylan is a jokerman, laying a trail of false clues, hiding the truth in plain sight and enjoying the ensuing mayhem. In his memoir Chronicles (2004) he says he wrote an album based on short stories by the Russian master of the form, Anton Chekhov.

covers – of songs sung by Frank Sinatra. On releasing the first one, Shadows in the Night (2015), he gave one interview – to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). When Dylan’s office offered them the interview, the magazine said there must be some mistake. No, they said, Dylan wants to speak to pensioners. Speak he did, in a 9000-word interview (which, weirdly, can be found on their website only in Spanish). “These songs [on Shadows in the Night] have been written by people who went out of fashion years ago,” Dylan says. “I’m probably someone who helped put them out of fashion. But what they did is a lost art form. To those of us who grew up with these kinds of songs and didn’t think much of it, these are the same songs that rock’n’roll came to destroy — music hall, tangos, pop songs from the 40s, fox-trots, rumbas, Irving Berlin, Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Hammerstein. Composers of great renown.” And he actually sings them (mostly). “Some of the music critics say I can’t sing. I croak. Sound like a frog,” Dylan has said. Actually Bob, millions of people have said that. Yet now, toward the end of his career, his vocal cords in tatters, he decides to go head to head with Sinatra. It’s another Dylan riddle – but also an example of his ambition. Is Dylan trying to make himself irrelevant by doing Sinatra for pensioners? Or timeless? Is he saying he himself is out of fashion? Well, in Chronicles he declared that he considered himself and his musical forms archaic way back in the 1980s, once rap arrived (even though he’d already done a duet with rapper Kurtis Blow). He has fun making fun of himself. Jeff Tweedy – the man who is Wilco – tells a good story, care of his bass player, who heard it from a friend. She was walking along a Memphis street when she looked through the basement window of a hotel – and saw Dylan in the swimming pool. Let’s go and say hi, she thought, and she did. They chatted. She told Dylan she was a fan, and went to his shows. How many had she been to? asked Dylan.

Oh, 25 or so, she said. “Oh man, how can you take it?” the singer asked. So why go and see Dylan now? Because you will never see his like again. You might never see him again. Because it will be funny, as he weaves his carnie magic and casts his big-tent spell. Because his ever-renewed music still has the power to move the soul and melt the heart. Because it will be funny, as he totters about the stage and plays piano with his marionette moves. Because the music is comic and tragic in equal proportions. And because any of the Bob Dylans we have known over the years – the earnest young singer-songwriter; the sneering existentialist; the contented country crooner; the fire and brimstone preacher; the lovelorn wastrel; the “strange old man singing scary songs” who freaked out his grandchild’s primary school classmates – could materialise on stage before your eyes at any moment. That is, because he is our Shakespeare, whose phrases

“I REALISED, THAT’S HOW HE WRITES SONGS. HE TAKES THESE SCRAPS AND HE PUTS THEM TOGETHER AND MAKES HIS POETRY OUT OF THAT.” – LARRY CHARLES LEFT PAGE PENSIVE BOB DURING THE RECORDING OF HIGHWAY 61 REVISITED , IN NEW YORK, 1965 ABOVE TAKING FASHION TIPS FROM LARRY CHARLES AT THE MASKED AND ANONYMOUS LAUNCH PARTY, 2003 RIGHT MOODY, MATURE BOB, 2009

litter our everyday language. “I’ve been trying for years to come up with songs that have the feeling of a Shakespearean drama,” he told AARP. “These songs of mine, they’re like mystery stories, the kind that Shakespeare saw when he was growing up,” he said in that MusiCares speech. Well, he’s made that Shakespeare record. In 2012. It’s called Tempest. Yes, like Shakespeare’s final play. Identities get mistaken. Lovers run away. Their lovers go chase them. There’s ivy leaf and silver thorn. There’s even a fairy queen. Not to mention a high body count by album’s end. Dylan is our Shakespeare. That’s why he won the Nobel. That’s reason enough to go see him. He also tells dad jokes, as he did to conclude that MusiCares speech: “I’m going to put an egg in my shoe and beat it.”

» Michael Epis is a Contributing

Editor of The Big Issue. » Bob Dylan is touring Australia 8-24 August.

HIT BY A HURRICANE K ATE CEBERANO LOVES BOB DYL AN’S MUSIC SO MUCH SHE RECENTLY DID A WHOLE GIG OF HIS SONGS AT MELBOURNE’S RECITAL CENTRE. BUT IT HASN’T ALWAYS BEEN THAT WAY… DEAR READER,

PHOTO BY GETTY

Before I write my essay on Bob Dylan, I make this disclaimer: I was a child of the 70s, raised by humans who didn’t listen to Dylan, weren’t ever hippies, who never smoked dope and didn’t like “non singers”. In their vinyl collection was Joan Baez, James Taylor, Nana Mouskouri, Roberta Flack, Charles Aznavour and a random collection of Don Ho Hawaiian classics (and the Cazimero Brothers’ ‘Sunday Manoa’ was played at every party). Years later it was Songs in the Key of Life, Earth Wind & Fire and Michael Jackson. So, Dylan was not the musique du jour… But hang in there with me. Our relationship has been an evolving thing during my 30 years as a singersongwriter. Call me a late bloomer, but I think I finally have him….within! MY FIRST INTRODUCTION to Dylan was during my brief spell as a Swinburne uni student. His was the voice that accompanied beery-breathed kisses, mohair skirts that itched, bonfires and walking off the hangover as a “happy somnambulist” around the Camberwell market. This was back in the day when the markets still had a junkyard magic about them. I was often accompanied by the buskers’ lament… “The times they are a-changin.” And indeed they were. I picked out The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan that day because I loved the cover, as well as a paperback of On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I listened to the album and imagined myself on that cold New York winter’s day, holding onto my boyfriend, happy to be loved by such a clever troubadour. I had no idea how already owned, possessed, obsessed over and notorious this Bob Dylan bloke was. To me he was a teenage crush that I was yet to have. I got into a band and had a few on the

“I REALISED I KNEW NOTHING ABOUT THE ROLE OF MUSIC OTHER THAN SIMPLE ENTERTAINMENT.”

side…jazz, disco and pop. But it wasn’t until my mum married a man who knew all the words to ‘Hurricane’ did I stop in my tracks long enough to comprehend the breadth of Bob’s storytelling. This essay, this treatise on racial discrimination, this modern parable of the wronged man, this concept of human rights and justice for everyone, not just for some… I felt winded, remorseful that I had never listened. I was so busy pursuing my own place in this micro-musicmaking folly that is the “Australian music business”, I realised I knew nothing about the role of music other than simple entertainment. I felt somewhat ridiculous and have resolved since to better understand the role of the bard. Love, it seems, is easier than people think, but life is the tricky business. Nobody writes life like Dylan. The human condition has never been more examined and exposed than in his songwriting. I had the good fortune to sing songs like ‘Wedding Song’ recently. In songs like these, his love has secrets sewn within that you can unlock only by learning the phrases independent from themselves and reversing their meaning. Love becomes losing, loss becomes wisdom gained, and memory becomes complete and total amnesia… You wipe out, you start again. No sentimentality. It’s just the way it is, when it was, in that time forever. And Bob is my forever guy. He’s happy to speak for all of us when we have simply forgotten the words.

» Kate Ceberano (@KateCeberano) is a multi-ARIA award winner who’s been performing and writing jazz and pop for more than 35 years. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

WHEN LIFE GAVE JENNIE SWAIN LEMONS, SHE TOOK CARE OF IT. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN SHE WAS HAPPY ABOUT IT.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

“WHAT DO YOU do?”

“I’m a carer.” It’s a conversation stopper. Maybe it’s the way parents run the other way in the playground at pick-up time, but I get the feeling no-one really wants to know how I am, even when they ask. I could say, “I’m socially isolated. I’ve stretched my friendships to breaking point and haven’t got time for new ones. I’m intense. I glare at people who park in the disabled spot without a permit. I’m chronically tired. I’m invisible. I’m grumpy.” But they’d prefer me to say, “Oh well, can’t complain.” No-one likes a whinger. Susan Sontag wrote: “Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” Carers dwell here, too. You don’t hear about us. We don’t get out much.

IN MARCH 2010 my partner, Nick, felt a bit crook. He couldn’t work out why his guts were sore. By the time he went into hospital for tests, his torso was full of tumours. They told him that, without treatment, he had three weeks to live. He moved into the crowded haematology and oncology ward that smelled of disinfectant and diarrhoea, where everyone was skinny and bald. Fear swept in, gripped my heart and stayed. I couldn’t digest. I couldn’t sleep. I thought my three-year-old daughter was going to lose her dad before she would be able to remember him properly. There’s nothing like mortal fear for losing weight. Within weeks I joylessly fit into all my pre-baby-body clothes. I gave up my work because I wouldn’t have been able to forgive myself if Nick died and I hadn’t spent as much time with him as possible. Nick was in hospital for most of the next five months and bombarded by toxic chemotherapy with every complication

ILLUSTRATION BY XENIA LATII

CARE FACTOR

possible and some impossible ones, too. He had pills for nausea, pills for diarrhoea, pills for pain, bags (going into tubes in his chest) with anti-viral stuff, anti-fungal stuff (which wrecked his kidneys, but protected his lungs), bags of chemo, bags with stuff to neutralise the chemo, bags of blood and platelets, bags of stuff to bring his white blood cells back after nuking them, bags of fluid to flush out the chemo, bags of stuff to make him wee because he had so much fluid on his ankles he couldn’t walk, oxygen and ointments. All the bags were controlled by pumps about the size of a car battery. They beep when they’re empty, when there’s a blockage in the line and when you have a headache just to shit you. One of the good side effects of the chemo, for Nick, is life. He survived. But while he was in hospital, my dad became violently ill and died. I had no time to grieve. We had to learn how to live this new life. One of the bad side effects was an infection that came because Nick’s immune system never recovered from chemo, leaving him with an acquired brain injury. Fatigue, pain, endless muscle cramps, diminished mobility, gushing nosebleeds, bruising, memory loss, broken sleep. Our focus was inward. We spent 24 hours a day together. We didn’t work. We didn’t socialise. My everyday efficiency smothered fear, guilt and grief. We were surviving. We dragged ourselves on and on. THAT WAS SEVEN years ago. We’ve only

just begun planning for a future. We’re in our fifties. Nick started volunteering and studying. He even won a community services award. He’s coming to terms with his losses and moving on, while I’m lagging behind, still grappling with mine. I realised I don’t suffer from FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). I suffer simply from MO. I also suffer from FIMO (Family Induced Missing Out), LIMO (Laziness Induced Missing Out), SIMO (Self-Imposed), UMO (Uninvited), EWIMO (Extreme Weather-Induced), COMOOE (Carers Obviously Miss Out on Everything) and RAMO (Resentment at Missing Out). Resentment. I feel ashamed of using the “R” word but, you know, I didn’t

sign up to be a carer. Not many do. Not many fall in love and choose to be with someone expecting that they will give unreciprocated care. There are so many invisible carers trapped in their roles. Some are only 10 years old, some are 90. When statistics were last gathered in 2015, there were 2.7 million unpaid carers in Australia, collectively providing 1.9 billion hours or $60.3 billion of unpaid care each year. More than two-thirds of primary carers are female. Carers Victoria says, “It’s not uncommon for carers to feel that they don’t really have a choice.” No matter how much you resent someone, how much you wish you were in a different, better, more inspiring relationship, no matter how much your

“STRESS, LONG-TERM TIREDNESS, GUILT AND BURIED GRIEF MAKE ME GRUMPY. HEAR ME ROAR. WELL, HEAR ME COMPL AIN, ANYWAY.” mother or father drives you nuts, you will still fight for their life. You just will. So, when people say, “I don’t know how you do it. How do you do it?” I just do. I have to. I want to. And I do. Nick recently had a painful lump in his abdomen. Our first thought was tumour, and that spelled THE END. That’s a small sign of Post-Traumatic Stress: an overreaction to a physical ailment. Understandable, but disproportionate nonetheless. Once again Nick was planning his funeral music. He has always worried I’ll play Carole King or kd Lang, so his first response to a minor ailment is to think about asking someone that isn’t me to arrange a song list. It turned out to be a common hernia, but I wasn’t just filled with nebulous fears about things going wrong under the surgeon’s knife. I wasn’t just plain old worried. I was annoyed that the surgery was in the middle of school holidays and our daughter would have no fun because we’d have to hang around and I wouldn’t be able to visit my mum in Sydney. And I felt guilty at being so selfish that I was grumpier than ever. It’s this combination of unspeakable resentment, stress, long-term tiredness, guilt and buried grief that makes me

grumpy. Hear me roar. Well, hear me complain, anyway. A post keeps arriving perkily on my Facebook feed telling me how complaining makes you sick or depressed or something. I also read that carers have the lowest wellbeing of any large group measured by the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, but the videos on the websites show real carers shining with goodwill and generosity of spirit. I’m not so shiny. I wonder if there are other carers out there who are a bit tarnished, like me? Carers who might be hiding their not-nice feelings? Perhaps the most helpful thing I can do is let my inner grump out and hope I don’t make myself sick in the process. Of course, I have much to be grateful for. Life, for one. I’m grateful we’re through the worst of it. I’m grateful to sometimes be back in the kingdom of the well. But I refuse to let gratitude get in the way of a good whinge. Be free, bad thoughts. Be heard and be free.

» Jennie Swain (surfingcow.wordpress. com) is running a community choir, writing a memoir, looking after everyone and is exhausted. Nick has recently returned to full-time work and given his permission for his story to be told. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

THE BIG PICTURE » SERIES BY NEIL THOMAS

IN THE

VALLEY ETHIOPIAN TRIBES ARE FACING DISRUPTION TO THEIR TRADITIONAL WAY OF LIFE AS THE RIVER ON WHICH THEY DEPEND IS DAMMED.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

THE BANKS OF the Omo River in Ethiopia are home to myriad

ethnic tribes, each with their own distinctive dress and rituals, who have lived off the land for centuries. The Suri wear unique lip plates, the Mursi bold horn jewellery. The ornately painted Karo, perhaps the region’s smallest tribe, often sport elaborate hairstyles or headdresses and ritualistic body scarring. Colourful beaded necklaces and bracelets, stacked silver rings, as well as flowers and feathers abound. Neil Thomas has visited the valley to photograph its people many times. “Many of them look very different from one another for a few reasons,” says Thomas. “There is great pride in appearance, especially among men. The Hamer men believe they have to look their best for the womenfolk. It has also served them well over the years to be able to quickly differentiate from one another. Great pride is taken in raiding other tribes for livestock, so a difference in appearance instantly shows whether you are a friend or a foe.” The Kenyan-born photographer has not only documented a portrait series of these proud people. The unstoppable tide of modern industrialisation threatens their very existence, and photos such as his are a record of a people and way of life on the verge of disappearing.

A SURI BOY.

“There has been a great impact on the tribes as their land becomes more compromised,” he says, referring to the massive hydro-electric dam that has been built on the river, and the subsequent commercial plantations and mandatory resettlements that have accompanied it. It has forced some of these tribes, many of whom rely on the river’s annual flooding to cultivate food, from their land. It was important to Thomas that he get to know the people who live in this area. “We really took our time to try to understand daily life, rituals, and to explore the region. It was a magical time,” he says. He wants to ensure that this important part of Ethiopia’s history survives, no matter what happens. “My hope is that I can bring these hard-to-reach places to a wider audience,” Thomas adds. “I’ve been documenting the people and landscapes of the East Africa region for two decades now, [enabling] future generations to see how their forebears lived. With the rapid changes I’ve seen, I believe this is more important than ever.” by Anastasia Safioleas (@Anast), Contributing Editor » See more at www.neilthomas.com.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JULâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;9 AUG 2018

LEFT PAGE AN ARBORE WOMAN IN TRADITIONAL GARB.

RIGHT PAGE BOTTOM A KARO MAN WITH HIS BARISTA (WOODEN PILLOW).

RIGHT PAGE TOP A SURI WOMAN WITH LIP PLATE AND WEDDING PAINT.

HOMEL

ES S

SEARCHING FOR HOME

NG VI

MARK WENT SEARCHING FOR A SAFE PL ACE TO SLEEP. HE NEVER EXPECTED THAT HE WOULD FIND SO MUCH MORE.

ILLUSTRATION BY MICHEL STREICH

AFTER MY MARRIAGE broke down, I

couldn’t afford my own place. So, for the past four years, I’ve been living alone in my van on a riverbank in NSW. In some areas, it’s not great for homeless people, but this particular local council doesn’t have a move-on policy. A lot of places, you find a good spot, they move you on. Here, I don’t have to worry about that. But I do get scared when I’m alone sometimes. There are a lot of people around on drugs and alcohol; they can be unpredictable. I’ve had enough of violence in my lifetime. I don’t like violence and try to distance myself from it. Being homeless though, means violence is a constant and very intimidating. I’m always aware of my surroundings. When I hear noises, I often panic. I close up the curtains in my van and hide. There are a lot of sounds. Sometimes, I open them up and there’s nothing there. And at times, I wonder where I am. I used to live in a boarding house in South Australia with a lot of blokes who were bigger and stronger than me. The final straw was seeing someone pull out a crossbow…ready to fire. My nerves were shot and my anxiety through the roof. That’s when I packed my bags and headed north. I had pulled out a map a few times and had kept looking up the coast. I’d been drawn to this area for some reason. My van is where I feel safe. I can up and move anytime I want. I used to drive around a lot, but the problems the van developed with the carburettor and radiator meant I couldn’t drive it very far.

At least with the van, I have a roof over my head. I have a bed built in and containers to put my clothes in. I’ve got a little gas cooker, so I can boil water, cook eggs and make toast. I also go to a soup kitchen nearby. When I’ve got power I can plug in my portable shower, or I visit the Salvos for a shower. It’s the not-knowing that gets to you most. Some things are out of your

there is a problem, and know they can make a difference. Even by taking a bit of time to talk and listen. I was paired with the actor Cameron Daddo. He slept on the floor inside my van for two nights, and I’ll never forget them. We really opened up to each other. It was an emotional goodbye when he left. We both burst into tears. A couple of weeks later, I got a phone call from a friend of mine, Chris

“A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE CLOSED MINDS. I WANT TO SHARE MY STORY TO LET PEOPLE KNOW THAT THERE IS A PROBLEM, AND KNOW THEY CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE.” control out here and you need to think on your feet. Safety is always on your mind – there are times when it is so hard to survive alone. I’ve been streetwise most of my life. I’ve had to be. And I’ve learned a lot over the years. I’ve learned a hell of lot since living like I do. I can tell a lot from people’s mannerisms and the way they speak. Just because people live in a home doesn’t make them better than a person who is homeless. When I was approached to be part of an SBS documentary around homelessness – to buddy with a highprofile Australian to show them what life’s like for me without a home – some suggested I do it to see what I could get out of it. But I didn’t want any handouts. I thought this show might be able to get the message to the right people, so that something can be done about the homelessness situation. A lot of people have closed minds. I want to share my story to let people know that

from StreetMed. She told me Cameron was going to get the van fixed. I burst into tears again. Cameron and Chris organised a new carburettor and cooling system. I was put up in a hotel near the mechanic and I was treated to my first ever massage. I was overwhelmed. Now the van is fixed, I just need to work the courage up to go for a long drive. Since then, I’ve also found true love. I never knew what love was. Now I do, and I’d do just about anything for this woman. I treat her like she’s a goddess. When I’m with her nothing else exists, it’s just me and her. It makes me feel calmer and safer. When I pulled out the map four years ago and was drawn to this area, I think it was a sign. If I hadn’t driven here, I might not have found my true love.

» Mark shares more of his story in SBS’ series Filthy Rich and Homeless, which screens from 14-16 August. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

A CUMBERBATH

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COURTESY OF INSP.NGO/THE BIG ISSUE UK BIGISSUE.COM @BIGISSUE

Cumberbatch

MONEY, DEBAUCHERY AND DRUGS. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH COMES CLEAN ON HIS NEW DRAMA. BENEDICT CUMBERBATCH’S RECENT

achievements are quite dazzling. Saving (or potentially destroying) half the universe as Doctor Strange in Marvel’s record-breaking box office smash Avengers: Infinity War; finishing Sherlock, for now at least; getting an Oscar nomination for The Imitation Game; starring in a sell-out run of Hamlet at London’s Barbican; being made a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE); performing on stage with Pink Floyd; marrying theatre director Sophie Hunter and becoming a parent. And now he’s playing his most extreme character to date – damaged, drug-addicted, debauched high-society playboy Patrick Melrose, in a TV adaptation of Edward St Aubyn’s high-octane novel series. “I have squeezed quite a bit of life in, you are right. Who would have known?” he says. “It is extraordinary. I’ve been a very lucky man. I have a lot of people to thank, because it has been a wonderful

Freeman’s comments about them taking the joy out of the show as “pathetic”. “What I love about what I get to do is that I don’t have to sit in a role for long. But then you put your arm round someone to pose for a photo and they go: ‘I really loved you in Stuart: A Life Backwards.’ That is lovely. There is a huge amount of emotion attached to so many of these roles for me and I am quite sentimental about some of them.” But where is he going next? Well, having launched production company SunnyMarch, for the first time Cumberbatch is in full control of his own artistic destiny. So far, most of the films and TV shows SunnyMarch has announced will star Cumberbatch. So how does it feel to be involved in the creative process from page to screen, using his star power to shape the culture? “Oh, god, that sounds terrible,” he says. “Like I’m deciding what TV or movie you watch.” Well, next up he’s making us watch

behind the appetite, the addiction, the psychological need these destructive drugs create,” he explains. “What are they replacing? With heroin, pretty much everyone I’ve spoken to says it’s about the warm embrace you never got from your mother. The relief from the suffering of existence. “The type of person who struggles with addiction, the type of person who has experienced abuse, sadly ranges across all class divides and so there is a universality to this that I think will translate.” It’s not all money and debauchery and damage and destruction, says Cumberbatch (although some might dispute this after watching episode one). “This story is about how the true wealth is love, and how true, pure, good, innocent love can win through. But boy does it struggle to get there.” The actor lists Big Little Lies and Twin Peaks among his own recent television highlights, plus Al Pacino in The Panic in Needle Park, which he watched as part of

Jumps Right In “THIS STORY IS ABOUT HOW THE TRUE WEALTH IS LOVE.”

time. It really has.” It’s not all luck, though, right, Benedict? You’re allowed to take a bit of the credit. “Of course. Of course it takes hard work and all of it is the result of something, but I often just stand back and go: ‘How? Why?’ It is extraordinary that all this stuff keeps happening to me,” he splutters. “And yeah. It reminds me, every step, how lucky I am.” He says visiting 2017 Comic-Con, where he signed thousands of autographs and posed for pictures with hardcore fans, was a reminder of how far he’s come. “People dress up as all sorts of things. There is a lot of Star Trek and Strange and Sherlock, of course,” says the 41-year-old, who recently defended those fans, describing Sherlock co-star Martin

Patrick Melrose, which explores issues around class, addiction, abuse and survival. It’s fear and loathing in the aristocratic set – and Cumberbatch is perfect for the role. He describes the series as offering a “scalpel-like post-mortem of an upperclass system that’s crumbling”. Cumberbatch plays Melrose himself, from his early twenties in the opening episode right through to his late forties in the finale. “He’s addicted to drugs and near suicidal, but also incredibly funny and brilliant,” he says. Hugo Weaving stars as the abusive father, a source of a lot of Melrose’s demons. For the role, he spent time with the Liverpool-based 3D Research Bureau to learn more about addiction and abuse. “Most important was the drive

the mood music for Melrose. But it’s the role as executive producer that has captured his imagination just as much as the on-screen hijinks. “It has been a big learning curve, and a blissfully happy experience for all concerned. It really worked. It really is a people business and if you get that alchemy right, and choose a good, industrious, challenging and kind team, you make for a really good working environment that is very productive,” he says. “What is exhilarating is the chance to be creative in different ways. We are making the kind of content I would like to see and I am proud of – that is really thrilling.” by Adrian Lobb (@adey70) » Patrick Melrose is on Foxtel, on BBC First. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

LYNCHBY LYNCH A BIOGRAPHY OF MAVERICK FILMMAKER DAVID LYNCH IS – NATURALLY – A LITTLE OUT OF THE ORDINARY.

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PHOTOS BY GETTY AND MOVIESTILLSDB

“EVERYBODY IS A mix of good and evil. Almost everybody has a bunch of stuff swimming in them, and I don’t think most people are aware of the dark parts of themselves.” Those are the words of David Lynch, an artist whose films and paintings suggest a very dark outlook indeed. Yet, as a person, he is a loving and cheerful optimist who finds deep beauty and joy in all facets of life – basically Twin Peaks’ Special Agent Dale Cooper incarnate. As highlighted in his new biography, Room to Dream, central to Lynch’s worldview and aesthetic are precisely these “dualities we live with and our efforts to reconcile them”. The initial idea for the book came from co-author Kristine McKenna – a journalist, critic and curator – who throughout the past four decades has been a key chronicler of Los Angeles’ diverse arts scene. The pair first met in 1980 when McKenna sought out Lynch for an interview after seeing Eraserhead, his astounding debut feature that put him on the map as one of the most distinctive new voices of American cinema. Over the phone from her home in Santa Monica, she reflected on that first encounter. “He seemed very innocent, and was so courtly and polite in a way most people aren’t. But there was also something very renegade about David; it was an interesting combination.” The two stayed in touch, with McKenna interviewing and writing about him a number of other times as his profile steadily grew. “When David’s telling a story, he goes off on strange tangents. That’s part of the charm of listening to him talk, and I wanted a structure for the book that could accommodate that.” This led to adopting an unusual tag-team writing

IN THE BEGINNING , ERASERHEAD

approach. McKenna would complete a conventional biographical chapter based on her research and extensive interviews, and Lynch would write one in response, offering his version of events and essentially “having a conversation with his own biography”. Captivating glimpses are provided into the inspirations behind some of his film imagery, such as the “smiling bag” from Twin Peaks (1990), or a dazed Dorothy Vallens walking down the street in Blue Velvet. Some of Lynch’s most iconic characters and scenes – think Killer BOB or Rebekah Del Rio’s mesmerising appearance in Mulholland Drive (2001) – are shown to have resulted from an uncanny ability to conjure up magic by instinctively embracing happy accidents. It should come as no surprise that Room to Dream avoids attempts to decipher Lynch’s works, given his well-documented aversion to overanalysis. He asserts that the intricately interwoven elements of a film, and the mood that they as a whole can evoke in a viewer, can never be distilled into words. McKenna, while noting the importance of the support he has received from critics, shares similar feelings. “I don’t need to understand his films; I like experiencing them,” she says. Asked how she would attempt to convey the appeal of Lynch to the uninitiated, McKenna hesitates. “God, that’s tough, it’s like explaining surrealism! If you’re interested in seeing something surprising, you may be interested in David’s work. He has a completely unfettered imagination; he creates images and has ideas that really haven’t occurred to most people before.” For those enticed by this, she has some suggestions for starting points. Casual movie fans are pointed towards The Elephant Man as “the doorway to

WITH KYLE MACL ACHL AN, DUNE

BLUE VELVET , WITH DENNIS HOPPER, ISABELLA ROSSELLINI

David, because it works on every level and anybody could love it”. Despite a particular adoration for Blue Velvet (1986) and Mulholland Drive, a more left-field selection is made for film buffs. “I would send them to ‘Part 8’ of Twin Peaks: The Return (2017), which is such a masterpiece and just sums up everything [about his work]. I saw him the day after that episode aired and I said ‘Wow! You really hit it out of the ballpark with that.’” McKenna worked hard to ensure the book remained accessible to a wide audience. “David’s is a lovely life story with a great cast of characters, and I definitely wanted it to be engaging for people who have never seen his films.” To that end there is ample material, and one of the most noteworthy is the beacon of inspiration it can represent for those seeking creative fulfilment. Lynch believes that creative expression is inherently available to us all, provided we find ways of nourishing and cultivating it; for him, this is facilitated via regular meditation. His driving motivation in life is decidedly simple: catching ideas that you fall in love with, and turning them into creations without worrying so much about the results – the joy is in the doing. The remarkable thing about him is that he approaches any one of his many creative outlets with this exact same mindset and joyfulness. “He’d be just as happy making a table in his woodshop as he would be making a film,” remarks McKenna, who recounts a sweet story about how, after sitting on a broken chair at a parent-teacher conference, “he had them send it to his house and happily repaired it the next day. He loves doing stuff like that.” by Reza Shams Latifi » Room to Dream is out now.

WITH NAOMI WATTS, MULHOLLAND DRIVE

SHERYL LEE AS L AURA PALMER , TWIN PEAKS

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IF IT AIN’T BROKE

T WO KIWIS SET OUT TO RECAST THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN ROM-COMS, WITH NOTHING BUT WIT, ABSURDIT Y AND TALENT ON THEIR SIDE (PLUS A FEW DIRT Y JOKES). NEW ZEALAND COMEDY is on a streak lately, with Taika Waititi and his awkward cohorts putting the country on the big screen. “I’m into the quiet confidence and nervousness of New Zealand at the moment,” says Jackie van Beek. “We’ve embraced our national character. We’re more comfortable with being mumbling, backwoods idiots,” she says, drolly. “That’s something to celebrate.” Van Beek and her IRL BFF Madeleine Sami are the co-writers, co-directors and co-stars of the country’s latest comic delight, The Breaker Upperers (executive produced by Waititi, of Hunt 32

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for the Wilderpeople and Boy). The film follows a couple of friends who are in the business of breaking up relationships for cash. They’re professionals: they’ll fake an affair or a pregnancy, or impersonate cops and declare you missing. It’s absurd, foul-mouthed and very, very funny. In the company of such comedy auteurs, I have to start by getting deep, and asking them about their most traumatic break-ups. Van Beek says she spent a week driving around in her car trying to find her ex and begging him to take her back. He did, and then dumped her again. “I was mostly relieved actually. I thought,

‘What an intelligent man.’” “I had one bad break-up,” says Sami. “It wasn’t a disaster, it just wasn’t a clean break. It dragged. It would have been good to have a service to keep us apart.” The characters they play, Jen (van Beek) and Mel (Sami), first meet when they realise they’re being two-timed by the same guy. “We’ve been friends for so long that we’ve been through the highs and lows together,” says van Beek. “Life experience helps when you come to write about heartbreak.” In real life, their paths first crossed a quarter of a century ago, in 1994, when van Beek was a tutor at an improv

“

PHOTOS © MISS PIKI FILMS LIMITED 2018, PHOTO BY MATT KLITSCHER

LEFT VAN BEEK AND SAMI TOP PARTYING WITH PACQUOLA BOTTOM PISSING OFF THE WRONG PEOPLE

competition and Sami was a promising 14-year-old. But it wasn’t until their twenties, when they co-starred in a theatre production of Spike Milligan’s Badjelly the Witch, that their friendship blossomed. Doing three shows a day and rarely leaving the theatre, they quickly bonded. “I’d just been dumped,” says van Beek. “Madeleine had some crisis. We drank heavily and bonded over the course of the show. It was debauched.” “We did tequila shots and fell asleep backstage talking about our problems,” says Sami. They moved on and grew up… But what if they hadn’t? This is the starting point for the film, which imagines two women who never recovered from their crises, and became co-dependent. Fifteen years after catching their cheating ex,

their relationship is based on ruining other people’s. It’s about friendship, bitter recriminations and rejecting emotional maturity. “During the writing process, we made sure we kept the friendship at the heart of it,” says van Beek. “That’s the main relationship. Not the male love interests.” Both of their characters’ romances are rather unhealthy, too. “Would you say unhealthy?” van Beek asks me. Jen remains obsessed with her ex-boyfriend, the very same one who was two-timing her with Mel, while the thirty-something Mel falls into a relationship with a teenager – physical age 18, emotional age, about 12. “It’s real, though,” says Sami. “People fall for people they shouldn’t.”

IT’S ABSURD, FOUL-MOUTHED AND VERY, VERY FUNNY.

”

Despite sneaking in such insights, The Breaker Upperers is still a comedy, and a wildly funny one at that. The world Sami and van Beek have built fits the absurdity of the premise perfectly, as does the supporting cast, including Celia Pacquola as a bereft victim of their business model, and James Rolleston as the teen Mel falls for. At its heart, this is a rom-com – but a subversive one. “We both love rom-coms but we’re a bit tired of getting the same message all the time,” agrees van Beek. “We wanted to say you don’t have to follow the conventional path to happiness.” Basically, the duo wants to bring the genre up to speed. “There’s a sacredness in the way that women are portrayed that needs to be shifted,” says Sami. “Men talk about jerking off all the time in films. When I was a teenager American Pie came out. A mainstream comedy where a guy has sex with a pie! If a woman did that in a film people would say, ‘Oh, that’s disgusting!’ There’s an assumption we don’t talk about these things.” “But ohh, we do,” says van Beek. “We’re crass. We love talking about dirty shit,” says Sami. “We need to keep doing it so it’s not awkward anymore, it’s just common.” “As common as a dick joke,” adds van Beek. So is there one thing they wanted to communicate with this film, aside from dirty jokes? “There’s a lot of pressure on women to settle down,” says Sami. “We wanted to say: ‘Do your thing. Have an unconventional, wonderful life. You can be a bit fucked up, it’s alright!’” “And we wanted to represent funny New Zealand women on the international stage,” says van Beek. “Yeah, women!” says Sami. “The last thing I want to say in this interview is: women!” by Will Cox (@dazzleships) » The Breaker Upperers is in cinemas now. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

GUITAR KING

PHOTO BY SIMONE CECCHETTI

K AKI KING GIVES GUITAR PYROTECHNICS A NEW MEANING.

IN THE WORDS OF Dave Grohl: “There are some guitar players that are good and there are some guitar players that are really fucking good. And then there’s Kaki King.” King is no ordinary guitarist. She reinvents guitar sounds as she sees fit and, over the past decade, the New Yorkbased artist has evolved her control of this most common of instruments into total mastery, despite her protestations. Since releasing her acoustic instrumental debut Everybody Loves You (2003) King has never settled. Through a career spanning 15 years, seven records and a slew of EPs, she has carved out a unique voice on her instrument, which, she says, is both the most important and most challenging aspect of her chosen craft. “I think one of the most difficult things is to find your own voice on an instrument, without singing,” King admits, talking down the phone from her backyard in Brooklyn. “The shortcut is writing music, and the long road is writing music that, even though played on the same instrument, people

hear it and go, ‘I know exactly who that is.’ Because you’ve done it for so long and you have emotional content to what you do that people can learn to read. That to me is the hardest part, it’s the biggest challenge, and it’s the thing that keeps me going.” In 2006, King was named on Rolling Stone magazine’s New Guitar Gods list – the only female to make the cut, and one of the youngest. Twelve years on, King dismisses the idea of being a “Guitar God”, far more content to focus on the voice, the composition, the music. King’s latest project, The Neck Is a Bridge to the Body, is performance art that illustrates very well her penchant for thinking outside the square. While it appeared as an album in 2015, this incarnation is truly a live spectacle, for which she collaborated extensively with sound and light designers. During the show King sits on stage dressed in all white while the sounds from her instrument are analysed by visual software. These are then reflected back as stunning moving visuals on a screen and the body of the guitar itself.

“I was looking around for a lighting design, [wondering] what I could do to just bring some beauty to the stage,” she explains on the origins of the show. “I’d gone back to playing solo guitar… and projection mapping is typically seen on large, architectural spaces. I thought, that’s amazing, but how is that applicable here? And then: can I do that on the guitar?” While visually stunning, The Neck… stands out as a masterful piece of composition, an aspect of musicianship that King has been working on her entire career. As far as she’s concerned, this project acts as a pivot: she’s now almost more composer than guitarist. “I would absolutely love to say that I’m a composer who plays guitar, yeah,” she says, enthused at the idea. “There’s something for me that just doesn’t get any better than pulling off a composition, really landing it, nailing it.” Of course, nailing a composition isn’t something that just happens – for King, it’s very much about enabling a freedom between her mind and her fingers, blocking out all else in order for the music to come through. “[I need to have] that relationship feel seamless and unobstructed,” she explains. “Especially unobstructed by thoughts like, that sucks, or, you’re not good enough – you know, the things you tell yourself to make you fail. And as long as there is this open circuit and open freedom between the fingers, the guitar, the mind, the ear, all of it working as one organism, then that’s when the beauty comes out.” She pauses, before adding with a laugh, “I guess what I’m saying to that end is that only by having a long, long, long relationship with playing the guitar have I allowed myself to become a composer who plays guitar. I think for most of my career, it was the other way around. “The instrument itself, it is endlessly interesting to me,” she says simply. “Unmasterable. You can never learn all there is to learn.” Even if you’re Kaki King. by Samuel J Fell (@SamuelJFell) » Kaki King tours Australia 9-19 August. THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

FILM ON CHESIL BEACH DIG IT: JOHN DAVID WASHINGTON AND LAURA HARRIER IN BLACKKKLANSMAN.

ANNABEL BRADY-BROWN > Film Editor “THIS FILM IS a wake-up call,” declared Spike

Lee after the Cannes premiere of his latest joint, BlacKkKlansman. It is widely being hailed as a return to form for the auteur (though I’d also go in to bat for the under-seen, wonky wonder that was 2015’s Chi-Raq). To be sure, Lee’s bold ambition never left, but after some shaggier outings it’s a thrill to see the rigour is back. Like his phenomenally controlled Do the Right Thing (1989) – which opens with the call to “Waaaaaake up!” from the local DJ, Mister Señor Love Daddy (Samuel L Jackson) and then erupts at the end in a race riot – BlacKkKlansman is a dizzyingly entertaining outing that doubles as fired-up social commentary. It might be his most accessible yet. As the intro informs us, the film is based on “some fo’ real fo’ real shit” – namely, a bizarre series of events involving the Colorado Springs Police Department’s first black officer, Ron Stallworth, who went undercover in the 1970s to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan. This lays the groundwork for an irresistible buddy comedy as Stallworth (John David Washington, whose father, Denzel, is a Lee favourite) teams up with the white, Jewish agent Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver). While some of the funniest moments involve the cops rubbing shoulders with Klan leader David Duke (played with relish by Topher Grace), a harrowing coda that includes footage of the Charlottesville protests brings home the contemporary racial tensions simmering beneath this retro provocation. Not to be missed.

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Newlyweds Florence Ponting (Saoirse Ronan) and Edward Mayhew (Billy Howle) are starting life together at a seaside hotel. Seated for dinner, they’re nervous about the night ahead as the big red bed in the other room looms ever larger. Though deeply in love, Florence and Edward know little about sex. It’s 1962, and every gesture is burdened by potential humiliation. Adapted by Ian McEwan from his 2007 novella, On Chesil Beach flashes back from the hotel to Florence and Edward’s courtship, fraught family relations and the escape each offers the other. Dominic Cooke’s direction is sensitive and restrained; his first film after a lauded theatrical career. Striking long shots accentuate the widening emotional chasm. Florence and Edward are hostages to history, unable to say what they really feel, in words that don’t exist yet. On Chesil Beach is like a Philip Larkin poem brought to life – a melancholy portrait of a repressive past, on the precipice of a freer future that comes too late for happiness. JOANNA DI MATTIA

RBG

 US Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg – or the “Notorious RBG” – is a woman of contradictions. Diminutive but powerful; a heroine for many feminists, yet possessing a conservative side. It’s clear the 85-year-old – who radically changed the law for the better for women, arguing cases before the court on which she was to sit – deserves a biographical documentary that can shed light on her character and career. Unfortunately, RBG doesn’t dip far below the surface. The choice of footage is particularly bothersome, with much lazily recycled throughout. After tracking her rise through the legal system, it examines the ways Ginsburg’s reputation grew – especially during the late 90s, when much of her life was transpiring before the gaze of TV cameras at the Supreme Court. There are charming moments, such as when her steely front dissolves to reveal a sense of humour. Taken as a whole, though, RBG would be more noteworthy if it focused on capturing a comprehensive portrait rather than on trivial tidbits. FAITH EVERARD

MAMMA MIA! HERE WE GO AGAIN 

It’s been 10 years since Sophie (Amanda Seyfried) first asked her mother Donna (Meryl Streep) about her three dads (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth and Stellan Skarsgärd) and got a whole bunch of ABBA songs as a reply. Now, Donna is dead – presumably from a fatal case of Streep-didn’t-want-to-returnitis – and, in tribute, Sophie is opening a hotel on the Greek island she called home. Then there’s a storm and nobody can make the launch. Then everybody shows up anyway. Of course, no-one’s watching this sequel for its plot – despite the extensive flashbacks explaining how young Donna (Lily James) slept with three hot guys within a month (basically, it was the 70s). Trouble is, it takes around an hour for the film to remember why we are back: camp humour and daggy dance numbers! Before then, it’s a rather stilted affair, and some B-list ABBA tracks creeping into the set don’t help. It eventually warms into something fun; special guest Cher sends things off with a bang. ANTHONY MORRIS

SMALL SCREENS DEADLOCK

DEAD LUCKY

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If it’s not edgy, is it even a teen drama? Workshopped in collaboration with Skins co-creator Bryan Elsley, the new Byron Bay-set ABC iView miniseries Deadlock certainly owes a lot to its older, cooler British sibling. Each of its five episodes tells the story of a cataclysmic event and its aftershock from a different teen’s perspective: aspiring ballerina Sadie, her best friend Laila, boyfriend Zai, school captain Aero, and schoolmate Jed. Written and directed by rising talent Billie Pleffer (daughter of Gillian Armstrong), the series showcases impressive performances from its young cast, as well as a distinct visual flair informed by the considerable natural beauty of its setting. Unfortunately, though, it’s held back by the sense of being developed around a boardroom table. Its edginess feels self-conscious, its characters too closely resembling recognisable types, failing to fully come to life. Despite admirable aims of representing a wide spectrum of youth experience, it lacks the sense of authenticity and freshness that made Skins groundbreaking and vital. JESSICA ELLICOTT

THE BLEEDING EDGE 

Ad breaks on American TV are dominated by spots for medications – such is the stranglehold of commercial pharmaceuticals across the country. But Big Pharma has a more sinister sibling, dissected here by Academy Award-nominated documentarian Kirby Dick (The Invisible War). The medical devices industry is deeply corrupt and very big – reportedly topping US$400 billion. This Netflix documentary meets a small group of those affected by faulty or unsafe implements, plus the medical professionals who’d previously endorsed the devices. Sometimes those folks are one and the same, which makes for gutwrenching viewing. Many of them are women, whose chronic pain and comorbid symptoms are quickly dismissed. Bodily trauma is taboo in the US, evinced here by oblique references to “female trouble” and “marital relations”. The Bleeding Edge unpacks these anxieties and, with forensic precision, paints a damning portrait of the sector exploiting them. AIMEE KNIGHT

Grace Gibbs (Rachel Griffiths) is a senior detective obsessed with catching the armed robber who killed one of her officers. She’s paired with Charlie Fung (Yoson An), a friend and colleague of the murdered officer, who blames Gibbs for his friend’s death. Their work draws them into a dodgy convenience store, a sharehouse of international students, and the lives of a grieving widow. SBS’ Dead Lucky has many similarities to the acclaimed second season of Top of the Lake, but it doesn’t quite match the emotionally charged and nuanced take on the procedural crime thriller. The cop-killer-on-the-run story is deeply mined, and Dead Lucky doesn’t bring much new to it. The most engaging storyline explores the exploitation traps that international students fall into in Australia. With so many wonderful actors in this fourpart series, you can understand why the show wants to spend time with every character. Unfortunately, four hours is not enough time for the characters to feel like more than acquaintances. ANNA HORAN

AIMEE KNIGHT > Small Screens Editor RYAN MURPHY’S WORK is an acquired taste, orbiting somewhere between Baz Luhrmann and PT Barnum. The writer, director and showrunner rose to notoriety with gaudy series like Nip/Tuck and Glee before unleashing his ostentatious bombshell American Horror Story in 2011. Subtitled ‘Murder House’, the first season of his anthology series did exactly what it said on the tin. AHS has since spawned seven self-contained seasons; my favourite being ‘Coven’, the most recent being ‘Cult’. The latter just premiered on Foxtel’s Showcase, home to much of Murphy’s schtick. Catalysed by the 2016 US presidential election, ‘Cult’ is an off-kilter opus to America’s performative politics. It caricatures the radical right and left – a move that could weigh the show down if it didn’t also leverage baser fears. Rife with the high-camp horror of Murphy’s honed aesthetic, ‘Cult’ is indebted to the carnivalesque. This is seen in ‘Cult’s’ sadistic opener as suburban wife and mum Ally (Sarah Paulson, a Murphy stalwart deserving of several dedicated columns) is terrorised by killer clowns

DVD

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STREAMING

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PAY TV

AMERICAN HORROR STORY: FACT OR FICTION?

– the low-hanging fruit of on-screen phobias. It manifests in Ally’s restaurant, the Butchery on Main. It feeds off chaos, danger and the sex-death confluence that pervades Murphy’s work, from The Assassination of Gianni Versace to his most recent show Pose (coming soon to Foxtel). If Murphy’s raison d’être is to make America grotesque again, he doesn’t have far to go.

PODCAST

APP

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MUSIC THE NOW NOW GORILLAZ 

Damon Albarn uses his “virtual band” Gorillaz, and the gonzo visuals provided by animator Jamie Hewlett, as a cover for some of his most free-wheeling (and commercially successful) experiments. The results haven’t always matched the ambition – the sheer number and array of collaborators on last year’s Humanz was far more impressive than the music. But a year on from that scattershot misfire, Albarn has delivered the most coherent Gorillaz release this decade. Like The Fall (2010), this album is a pared back affair, written by Albarn in a succession of hotel rooms with just a handful of guest cameos. The lyrics dwell on the isolation of modern life (and international touring), but the shimmering synths and beats brighten Albarn’s melancholia. The opening track and lead single, ‘Humility’, adds jazz icon George Benson’s summery guitar to the mix. But it’s the album’s beautifully understated final track, ‘Souk Eye’, that really soars, shuffling to a climax laced with disco-tinged synth stabs. TOM MANN WHO IS THE NEW CHRISTINA?

SARAH SMITH > Music Editor EFFORTLESSLY SHAPE-SHIFTING from teen-pop idol on her 1999 debut to raunchy “Xtina” on Stripped (2002), Christina Aguilera clearly has a knack for evolution. Following her 40s-inspired “Baby Jane” deviation in the mid-00s, the powerhouse singer eventually settled in as a judge on The Voice. This new role and collabs with Pitbull and Maroon 5 may have ensured some chart presence, but she hasn’t released a solo record proper since 2012 flop, Lotus. Which raises the question: is Christina Aguilera relevant in 2018? If Liberation is an attempt to answer this, then the answer is: yeah, kind of. While the record’s #metoo moments can come off a little ham-fisted at times, the Demi Lovato duet ‘Dreamers/Fall in Line’ – which is preceded by an interlude of young girls declaring their dream professions – is a stand-out. Strong, overwrought female vocals may be out of fashion, but Aguilera’s voice has long been her weapon and here it’s utilised with extraordinary results. ‘Maria’ (produced by Kanye West) offers a bit more, it’s trap-y tropes and Jackson 5 sample providing a sublime counterpoint to her breathy warbles. With questionable lines like “Don’t try to tell me I’m crazy/It’s good pay, but it’s slavery,” the Anderson Paak-penned ‘Sick of Sittin’ misses the mark. But ‘Like I Do’, featuring DC rapper GoldLink, gets the recipe just right. With a cheeky reference to her breakout hit ‘Genie in a Bottle’, it strikes the perfect balance between Christina Aguilera past, present and future.

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EVERYTHING IS LOVE THE CARTERS 

Beyoncé and Jay Z’s collaborative record is a portrait of the pair emerging from a period of marital unrest (which inspired brilliant solo albums from each), triumphant and stronger than ever. A pure celebration of black wealth and strength, Everything Is Love is a remarkable statement from hip-hop’s pre-eminent power couple. Sketching out social issues and personal opulence against beats produced by the likes of Pharrell and Boi-1da, The Carters revel in success at each turn. Jay Z exhibits moments of dynamism, but Bey still manages to steal the spotlight, swapping a rich vocal range for biting raps that are startlingly refreshing in their own right. As a hip-hop album it’s good, but not groundbreaking. In terms of showing the grasp Beyoncé and Jay Z have over the genre and the relationship between hip-hop purists and the more mainstream demographics both now appeal to, Everything Is Love is an absolute masterclass. SOSEFINA FUAMOLI

LAMP LIT PROSE DIRTY PROJECTORS 

On Dirty Projectors’ 2017 self-titled set, Dave Longstreth went to a dark place. Going it alone, in Los Angeles, in the wake of a break-up (of both relationship and band), the oft-bitter songs processed history via a harsh digital palette. On Lamp Lit Prose the clouds part, the ninth DP LP bright in sound and sentiment. Longstreth weaves colourful tapestries of guitars while vocal harmonies are stacked skyward, care of Haim, Empress Of, Syd, Rostam and Fleet Foxes’ Robin Pecknold (Björk makes an instrumental appearance, but sadly doesn’t sing). The lyrics are classic coming-out-the-other-side stuff: ‘(I Wanna) Feel it All’ about letting your guard down; ‘You’re the One’ and ‘Break-Thru’ giddy with the thrill of new love. Longstreth also comes upon his most explicitly political song, ‘That’s a Lifestyle’, a venom-laced lament (“When the words mercy and justice are raised/Members only apply”) for the sorry state of his nation. ANTHONY CAREW VINYL

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BOOKS THUY ON > Books Editor THE NEXT INSTALMENT of The Big Issue is the always eagerly awaited Fiction

Edition, where your humble books editor, along with fellow reader Nicola Redhouse (who herself had a story in 2017’s Fiction Edition), trawled through 400-plus submissions. Yes it was hard work, but someone had to do it! There was no theme, so writers sent stories about anything they so desired – we got a little bit of everything. We were both careful to choose 30 longlist titles to cover a variety of tones, styles and subject matter, which The Big Issue editorial team then read, before a roundtable discussion to decide which stories would make the cut. Joining us this year in the robust debate was award-winning author Graeme Simsion (The Rosie Project; The Best of Adam Sharp), who offered his scrupulously tabulated and learned opinion. As Nicola says, “I was privy to the intense, considered judgement given to the final selection, which takes into account not only the effect of each piece but the balance of voices, and the ecology of the magazine as a whole.” As usual, there will also be some commissioned authors in the mix, so look out for contributions from Melanie Cheng, Marija Peričić, Maxine Beneba Clarke, Tony Birch and Garth Nix. There really is something for everyone in the forthcoming licorice allsorts selection of stories; we hope you enjoy savouring all that’s on offer from 10 August.

BURNING FIELDS ALLI SINCLAIR 

This historical romance, set in a northern Queensland town in 1948, transcends its genre thanks to nuanced characters and tight plotting. Notwithstanding the inevitable clichés, the descriptions of cane fields with their burned sugar scents and the rural landscape are evocative and resonant. The female-driven perspective of protagonist Rosie Stanton lays bare the inherent sexism and cruel, casual racism of the time. Her father calls post-war migrants “dagos” and “wogs”. In this climate of repression, Rosie runs Tulpil farm when her father has a stroke, until her brother takes over because he is male. Tomas Conti is Rosie’s love interest, at first characterised as a stereotypical Sicilian but then refined through effective flashbacks set in wartime Palermo. His family, suspected of being fascists, are shunned by the community. By the end, family secrets are revealed, and characters are given a chance at redemption. A book that appeals to its commercial readership, yet with depth and insight into post-war Australia. KATRINA COSGROVE

ALWAYS ANOTHER COUNTRY SISONKE MSIMANG 

We’ve all heard about crime-solving via DNA testing, but what about through linguistics? In this book, the second in the series, John Olsson takes us through some fascinating details of his profession as a forensic linguist. More Wordcrime explores examples of real cases – including plagiarism, hate mail and murder – to elucidate some of the ways in which Olsson has plied his knowledge. Along the way he also debunks some common ideas, for instance, that a linguist should attempt to draw a psychological profile of a person. In fact, it’s imperative to remain objective; to not know anything outside your own evidence before the case has been dealt with in court. Olsson demonstrates admirably throughout “how linguistics, an apparently abstract ‘academic’ university subject, can be used to solve everyday problems”. He also speaks about “linguistic tragedy”: what happens when officials abuse language in order to thwart justice.

Sisonke Msimang, the daughter of a freedom fighter, grew up in exile from South Africa. Her eloquent memoir of home, belonging and race politics traces her childhood in Zambia, Kenya and Canada, her university years in America, and her return to a South Africa that is free but not just – or, ultimately, safe. Her generation was “told we would drive Africa’s economic liberation”. But dreams can betray you, as Msimang learns. Her feminist perspective aptly reveals how “apartheid’s legacies seem to have woven themselves into the most intimate of spaces”. In her presenttense, essay-style explorations, she’s at her most powerful in depicting resilience against racism’s brutalities alongside acknowledgement of her own complicity, the way her privilege positioned her in “South Africa Inc” and the toll of her idealism and militant politics for both her family and herself. She turns to deeper understandings of home, untwining geography and belonging, finding refuge in family and a new life in Australia.

THUY ON

ASHLEY KALAGIAN BLUNT

MORE WORDCRIME JOHN OLSSON 

E-BOOK

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

“

I’ve always treasured the age-old cooking tips of using what you have and not throwing anything away.

“

Maeve O’Meara

My Favourite Minestrone Ingredients Serves 10

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil 2 onions, diced 8 garlic cloves, each cut into 3–4 pieces 1 celery hear t including the pale, tender leaves, sliced 2 large or 4–5 smaller carrots, cut into bite-sized pieces 2 cups roughly chopped savoy cabbage

MAIN PHOTO BY GORTA YUUKI. RECIPE BY STEFANO MANFREDI.

Method Heat the oil in a heavy-based pot and add the onion, garlic, celery heart, carrot, cabbage and bay leaves. Lightly fry the vegetables for 2–3 minutes without letting them colour. Stir in the beans, potato and tomato, then cover the ingredients with water. Once the soup comes to the boil, add the rice and turn down to a simmer. Add a few good pinches of salt and simmer for 20–25 minutes. Add the spinach, parsley and parmesan rind and simmer for another 5 minutes. Remove from the heat and taste for seasoning, adding extra salt if needed, and pepper. Serve with plenty of grated parmesan and crusty bread.

2 bay leaves 1 cup fresh flageolet beans, or other fresh (or cooked dried) beans 350g waxy potatoes such as desiree, peeled and diced

1 cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly chopped 60g parmesan rind, cut into 1cm cubes freshly ground black pepper

200g tinned Italian tomatoes, crushed

freshly grated parmesan, to ser ve

100g carnaroli rice salt 150g spinach, roughly chopped

Maeve says… Over the years, I’ve collected many recipes while filming Food Safari, and love cooking them for my family and sitting around our big table to share. One of our favourites is Stefano Manfredi’s magnificent minestrone – his recipes are the heart and soul of Italian cooking and touch a deep part of you. Full of fresh vegetables, this soup was eaten at least once a week as Stefano was growing up and I’m delighted he generously shared his recipe with us. Since we filmed this minestrone for our Italian Food Safari series, I’ve made it dozens of times. The great thing is that you can make it on a big scale so there is always some left over, which is perfect, as this tastes even better the next day. This is a soup that gets better with age. Minestrone is pure cucina povera – making do with the simplest of ingredients by getting the best of the sweetness of the vegetables, and adding the heartiness of the rice and beans. Using the parmesan rind to deepen the flavour is very clever. I love this! Scrape the wax away and cut it into small cubes to add to the soup. As an OzHarvest ambassador, I’ve always treasured the age-old cooking tips of using what you have and not throwing anything away. I’m always saving parmesan rinds and know that when I have one or two, it’s time to make this delicious touch-your-heart soup. It’s a wonderful family meal, but also could be an incredible starter of an Italian dinner party. It’s important to remember that every Italian meal is a celebration, no matter how simple the food. Hope you enjoy this recipe!

» Food Safari Water airs Wednesdays at 8pm on SBS from 1 August.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

LORIN PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

ON THE SMALL TALK

PHOTOS BY iSTOCK

IS IT SAFE to say small talk is getting harder? Is there anything left to discuss without dipping suddenly and dramatically into a deep dive of mutual horror? “Hello. How’s your day been? Heard the news?” No! Not the news! Good grief no. Anything but the news. How about…the weather? Yeesh. Didn’t think so. Sport! Good, clean, healthy sport… with its…cheats…and its…misogyny…and its…NEVER MIND SHOOSH LET’S JUST SIT HERE IN SILENCE. Small talk is, essentially, a mutual attempt to unite strangers in a suspended moment of casual regard while time passes. To avoid content that is important, or meaningful, or threatening, or worrying. We don’t want to expend unnecessary emotional energy discussing the fall of Western capitalism with a person who is selling us groceries and who is labelled SAMANTHA if we can at all avoid it. For Samantha’s sake, and for ours. Thus we avoid speaking to each other properly lest we say anything. Most of the time that’s because it’s 10 minutes until your car park expires and Samantha is about to go on break. Here’s the thing, though. We’re communicating all the time. We’re actually very good at it. There are little moments of connection all around us. So here’s to them. Forget the main action. Ignore the plot and the dialogue. Look in the background at all the other things going on. SOMEONE AHEAD OF you on the escalator stepping to the left because they hear you coming: communication. A cat head-butting you at a bus stop: communication. Locking eyes with a person at a train station while you’re on a train that has just started moving and the pair of you have nothing to lose so you just look, without selfconsciousness, for three large seconds: connection. That thing where you’re crossing the road and the pedestrian light starts to flash red and there’s a car waiting to turn and you perform for them a hurried walk that actually isn’t much faster than your real walk: communication. I was in an office recently and a person trotted over to her manager’s office. Needed quick approval for something. Knocked on the door while reading over something complex to make sure she had it all in order. Manager was on the phone, which wasn’t obvious from outside the door, so she turned, the manager, in her swivel chair. Really gave it a hefty spin

so that she faced her visitor at the door while simultaneously talking on the phone. She held her finger up – one minute! – while smiling, and the spin kept going so that the colleague with the question, now leaning in the doorframe, was smiling at the jovial movement of her manager, spinning, still, in jaunty circles with her finger aloft, dealing most seriously with this person on the phone who had no idea she was rotating at speed. A lot is said about “workplace culture” but if there could be more spinny-chair-type managers that would be nice. Spinny boss and her door-leaning colleague then had a brief, friendly, informative chat, and each went back to work, an in-joke shouted over a shoulder on the way out. The spin in the chair was the most important element of communication, though; of that there is no doubt. Reaching over and taking food from someone else’s plate: incredible act of intimate communication. The way humans communicate with each other using coded visual symbolism, deploying aesthetics to convey stories, feelings and desires. Yes there’s film and art, but walk past your favourite bookshop. Look at the window display. The way the books are fanned. The way the colours work. The little stationery items in the glass jars near the counter. Someone in the bookshop is selling you an idea; the idea of what you might become if you open the door and then the front cover of a book. Google “the art of window displays”. And sure, this is capitalism writ large. It’s actually called, awfully, “visual merchandising”, but the instinct is no different from the human desire to design a lovely garden out the front of a home with a carefully swept path and a cute little letterbox. It’s communicating, visually, an idea. And the idea is: you’re welcome here. Come in. You’ll love it. Small talk might be getting harder, but remember: no talk is also good. The unspoken stuff. The spinny chairs and the food theft and a strange cat and a house. This has been a Public Service Announcement.

» Lorin Clarke (@lorinimus) is a Melbourne-based writer. Her new radio serial, The Fitzroy Diaries, is on the ABC’s Radio National. You can also find it wherever you get your podcasts, or on the ABC Listen app.

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

PUZZLES

2017-18 - Puzzle 8

BY LINGO! TOAST The story of toast begins with the use of heat to brown something. English borrowed this word from French, where it could also mean “grill”, “roast” or “burn”. When bread was heated in this way in the early 15th century, it became known as toast. Far from being a breakfast food, toast was often toasted to be added to wine or ale (toast and spreads didn’t take off until the 17th century). Adding toast to an alcoholic beverage is likely the origins of the act of toasting someone; the sentiment being that naming a lady and drinking to her health figuratively flavoured the act “like a spiced toast in the drink” (as per the Oxford English Dictionary). by Lauren Gawne (lingthusiasm.com)

2017-18 - Puzzle 7 SOLUTIONS #566

ADDER’S COIL by Wylie Ideas wylieideas.com.au

HOW TO PLAY Place a number in each empty square to make a path through squares of the grid following the numbers 1 to 9 in order, repeated as many times as necessary. After 9, start again with 1. The path tracks through adjacent squares horizontally or vertically, but not diagonally, to form a continuous loop that does not cross itself, split or reach a dead-end at any point. Solution next edition!

cigar 10 Skin 11 Needless 14 Nightclub 15 Naomi 16 Mural 18 Seesawing 20 Renegers 21 Iota 25 Cast-iron stomach 26 Lapse 27 Sleepwear DOWN 1 Jocks 2 Tooting 3 Eden 4 Brut 5 Ginger beer 6 Occidental 7 Magneto 8 Harassing 12 Stalagmite 13 Classrooms 14 Numerical 17 Rings up 19 Isolate 22 Abhor 23 Isle 24 Soup

CONTRIBUTORS Film Editor Annabel Brady-Brown Small Screens Editor Aimee Knight Music Editor Sarah Smith Books Editor Thuy On Cartoonist Andrew Weldon

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

ENQUIRIES Advertising Jenny La Brooy on (03) 9663 4533 jlabrooy@bigissue.org.au Subscriptions (03) 9663 4533 subscribe@bigissue.org.au Editorial Tel (03) 9663 4522 editorial@bigissue.org.au The Big Issue, GPO Box 4911, Melbourne, VIC 3001 thebigissue.org.au © 2018 Big Issue In Australia Ltd

PRINTER PMP Limited 8 Priddle St Warwick Farm NSW 2170

CARTOON BY ANDREW WELDON

EDITORIAL Editor Amy Hetherington Deputy Editor Katherine Smyrk Contributing Editor Michael Epis Contributing Editor Anastasia Safioleas Editorial Coordinator Lorraine Pink Art Direction & Design Gozer (gozer.com.au)

CROSSWORD

ACROSS 1 Jitterbug 6 Oomph 9 Close but no

CROSSWORD » by 1

Siobhan Linde (@siobhanlinde)

2 1

1 1

14 1

17 1 20

21 1

CRYPTIC CLUES

1 1

DOWN

The answers for the cryptic and quick clues are the same.

1. Catch criminal importing first-rate carpet (9) 6. Like a number? (5) 9. Regularly take head off cushion (5) 10. How one loses ice cream cake? (4,5) 11. Ancient relic – he’s not Gene Wilder (10) 12. Drop vocal harmony (4) 14. Vehicle chase starts a violent protest (7) 15. Maligned the late sportsperson (7) 17. A fool touring northern Belgian city (7) 19. Mum’s rewritten a really vacuous review (7) 20. Beat the latest record (4) 22. Plastic cannot ever break (10) 25. Quasimodo’s orders sound familiar? (4,1,4) 26. In Brazil, Chileans get nothing (5) 27. Remains with doctor for one second (5) 28. Nudist is about to protect local worker? (9)

1 1

ACROSS

1 1

11 1

1. Top hat and my bad earrings, perhaps (5) 2. Cook a nut roast for space explorer (9) 3. Fruits are brown; squash is green (10) 4. Dreamt about eating entire rump steak, perhaps (3,4) 5. Luge or giant cross country? (7) 6. Starts digging into some healthy food (4) 7. Silly sentimentality seen on family vacation (5) 8. Try to shield each monarch from betrayal (9) 13. Our cousin Nick received one thousand bank notes (10) 14. Hired the car out with friends, occasionally (9) 16. IT company returned first e-TAG with protective cover (9) 18. Saw shower above bath initially (7) 19. Pioneer left me outside (7) 21. Old bread finally exchanged for pasta (5) 23. Air is getting through despite the regulator (5) 24. Father and sons made progress (4)

QUICK CLUES ACROSS

1. Carpet (9) 6. Finger or toe (5) 9. Frequently (5) 10. Small fried cake (4,5) 11. Prehistoric monument (10) 12. Harmony (4) 14. Ancient vehicle (7) 15. Sportsperson (7) 17. Belgian city (7) 19. Overview (7) 20. Record (4) 22. Defy (10) 25. Sound vaguely familiar (4,1,4) 26. Nothing (5) 27. Remains (5) 28. Server of drinks (9)

DOWN

1. Rings (5) 2. Space explorer (9) 3. Citrus fruits (10) 4. Fresh food for carnivore? (3,4) 5. Eastern European country (7) 6. Platter (4) 7. Silly (5) 8. Betrayal (9) 13. Our close relative (10) 14. Hired (9) 16. Covered with protective material (9) 18. Saw (7) 19. Colonist (7) 21. Type of pasta (5) 23. Air (5) 24. Go by (4)

THEBIGISSUE.ORG.AU 27 JUL–9 AUG 2018

CLICK EDITED BY MICHAEL EPIS » PHOTO BY GETTY

Patti Smith, Lou Reed, 1976 LET PATTI SMITH tell the story, as she

inducts Lou Reed into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame in 2015: “Hello everybody. On October 27th, 2013, I was at Rockaway Beach, and I got the message that Lou Reed had passed. It was a solitary moment. I was by myself, and I thought of him by the ocean, and I got on the subway back to New York City. It was a 55-minute ride, and in that 55 minutes, when I returned to New York City, it was as if the whole city had transformed. People were crying on the streets. I could hear Lou’s voice coming from every cafe. Everyone was playing his music. Everyone was walking around dumbfounded. Strangers came up to me and hugged me. The boy who made coffee was crying. It was the whole

city. It was more… Sorry. [Crying] I realised, at that moment, that I had forgotten, when I was on the subway, that he was not only my friend, he was the friend of New York City. “I made my first eye contact with Lou, dancing to the Velvet Underground when they were playing upstairs at Max’s Kansas City in the summer of 1970. The Velvet Underground were great to dance to because they had this sort of transformative, like a surf beat. Like dissonant surf beat. They were just fantastic to dance to. And then somewhere along the line, Lou and I became friends. It was a complex friendship, sometimes antagonistic and sometimes sweet. Lou would sometimes emerge from the shadows at CBGBs.

If I did something good, he would praise me. If I made a false move, he would break it down… “Everything that Lou taught me, I remember… His consciousness infiltrated and illuminated our cultural voice. Lou was a poet, able to fold his poetry within his music in the most poignant and plainspoken manner. Oh, such a perfect day. Sorry. [Crying] Such a perfect day. I’m glad I spent it with you. You made me forget myself. I thought I was someone else. Someone good. You were good, Lou. You are good. “True poets must often stand alone. As a poet, he must be counted as a solitary artist. And so, Lou, thank you for brutally and benevolently injecting your poetry into music.”

THE BIG ISSUE FICTION EDITION IS ON SALE… 46 THE BIG ISSUE X MONTH – X MONTH 2017

FRIDAY 10 AUGUST